Breaking Point
by TalliW
Summary: Connor has reached breaking point and has decided to leave the ARC.


Connor smiled at Abby, the girl he had been in love with for three years now. Despite everything he had done for her she had always ignored his advances.  
Oliver Leek had been right. They were the losers, the geeks that no girl wanted. But still he had held to his hope.

Then she had kissed him. But not because he had saved her life a dozen times and had always been there for her. No, she had kissed him because he had helped her sorry excuse for a brother, the arsehole who had gambled Rex away and had put everyone in danger.

And later she'd had the fucking cheek to tell him she didn't want it to be awkward between them now and that she preferred to have Sid and Nancy back in her flat but not him. The damn bitch.

Connor crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and threw it against the Anomaly Detector in delight. Lester could write his reports alone. He was good at writing all those little post-it notes after all, wasn't he? "Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't touch that." Sir fucking James could screw himself for all he cared anymore.

Connor grinned when he thought about the disarray he had left in the bathroom that morning. The bathtub might be full by now. He imaged the water running over the edge of the tub, slowly flooding the expensively furnished flat.

He snickered as he heard the loud cursing from the locker room. 'How is it when you look like an idiot for once, Danny?' he thought with satisfaction.

Abby looked strangely over at him then hurried away in direction of the locker room.

Connor didn't wait until she came back with an angry and soot-covered Danny. He pushed enter on the keyboard, starting the program which would format the hard disks so often even a computer genius like Sarah would have problems recovering anything.

He took the artefact out of the rack of the machine he had built and set it down on the edge of the table. After taking Abby's spare car key he had stolen weeks ago from her room out of his trouser pocket, he set the artefact spinning and left the ARC. He had reached Abby's Mini before the artefact tumbled over the edge of the table and shattered on the floor.

Helen stared in surprise at the young man sitting on a rock in the Cretaceous in front of the Anomaly.

"I heard the artefact has been destroyed and the detector program doesn't work anymore. I take it that was your way of telling them you've left the job. Are you now here to kill me, Connor?"

Connor laughed. "Why should I do that?"

Helen quirked her eyebrow. "I thought the fact that I killed Nick would be excuse enough for your childish revenge campaign."

"Perhaps I've grown up. Your actions have been a real eye-opener to me." Connor said.

"Really? How is that?" Helen asked curiously.

Connor bit his lips and collected his thoughts before he started to explain.

"I've always tried to live up to the expectations of other people. And when I wanted out, have a life of my own, they called me weird. I thought Cutter was different. I wanted to impress him but it was always Stephen or Abby, never me. He only came to me when no one believed his nonsense about a changed reality and Claudia Brown. Then I was good enough for him. The little science-fiction freak who would believe everything. I admired Cutter. I loved him like a father. But he ran away, like my real dad did. He took the easy way out and left me behind with all the responsibility. I tried to take over and make him proud. I know I could have achieved it. But I failed because all the others threw a spanner in my work."

Helen stood there and listened to Connor's ranting. She didn't offer commiserations of any kind. But for Connor it was entirely sufficient that Helen heard him out. She could understood him because she had also been an outsider who had been belittled by the great Nick Cutter and his collegues.

"I want them to suffer. All of them," Connor hissed maliciously. "I want them to feel desperate and worthless like they made me feel.  
Abby, the bitch, who only played with me, all along. Lester, the self-righteous bastard, for whom I never could make it right. Danny with his super ego, who always had to take centre stage. And even Sarah, who often treated me like an idiot with her arrogant, golden boy Becker."

Tears had welled up in his eyes and he swept them angrily away with the back of his hand.

"That's a lot of anger you have pooled up inside you, Connor. Are you feeling better now that you've let some steam off?" Helen asked, amused.

"Yeah, I actually feel better." Connor shook his head in astonishment. "I never thought simple ranting might do any good. But it really has helped."

Helen snorted. "I cursed and ranted against Nick for years when I was stuck in the past and couldn't find my way back home," Helen revealed with a glint in her eyes. "Did you know that Nick was supposed to go with me to the Forest of Dean back then? Perhaps everything would have taken another course if he had been there with me."

Helen gripped her knapsack tighter. "But that's crying over spilled milk. I'll make you no promises but I'm sure I can help you in your pursuit. You're not the only one who wants revenge. Just a question, Connor. What's with Jenny? Don't you want to have her suffer as well?"

Connor smiled through the tears still hanging on his eyelashes. "Jenny is the only one who took me for what I am. She always talked straight with me."

He ran his fingers through his hair, absorbed in thought. "They haven't made it easy for her either. The others never accepted her properly. Cutter always saw someone else in her, even until the last minute of his life. No, Jenny has suffered enough. I don't want to add to her pain."

"Good!" Helen replied. "Then I think there is someone you want to meet."

"Hallo, Connor," Jenny Lewis greeted him with a smile whilst she put away the gun she had been aiming at him the whole time. "Welcome to the Anti-ARC-Project."


End file.
